Tag: Job Hunt

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Serious Stuff

Due Diligence, 21st Century Edition

1 min read

I was laid off from my graphic design/website maintenance day job in mid-December. I still have podcast editing going on that’s keeping a roof over my head, and fortunately, this happened just a month before I serve as technical director for two livestream events, for which I also get paid. There’s no good time to lose a job, but as timing goes, this happened at a time when other things could keep me afloat. Obviously, I’ve already started looking for something to replace that job and that lost income, because the livestream events in January are a fortunately-timed outlier, not the norm. Since I have no working vehicle, and the nearest access point to public transportation is miles away, I’m also locked into looking for remote work.

This is where things get tricky. There are so many grifters out there running “work from home” scams that it’s unbelievable. Let’s meet one of them right now. … Read more

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Funny Stuff Toiling In The Pixel Mines

Arkansas and Texas are adjacent, therefore all points in Arkansas and Texas are equidistant

1 min read

Monday so far.

Robert Half: Hey, are you interested in a mostly-remote graphic designer position that pays $22/hour?

Me: Sure!

Robert Half: Great, it starts Monday morning with an on-site orientation visit.

Me: Where?

Robert Half: Houston

Me: Where…do you think I am…relative to Houston?

Robert Half: I don’t know, I’m the recruiter in Salt Lake City.

Me: You didn’t get my notification in 2020 that I moved out of Utah?

Robert Half: …… Read more

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Funny Stuff Toiling In The Pixel Mines

The future of job searching…

…is basically like creating a profile on a dating site.

I applied for a graphic design job which required – REQUIRED! – me to post a “passion video”. Fortunately they described what they meant – sorry, I charge extra for doing O faces on camera – and then I realized…oh wait. I’m doing this during a break at my present job. Um…how to do this without attracting attention? … Read more

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Serious Stuff

Company Man

Burly BrawlAs I sit here, secure in my stay-at-home-dad-hood, “decolorizing” and repurposing scans of arcade marquees I once owned so Little E can have coloring pages with Dig Dug characters on them, and continuing to send out applications for gigs that would allow me to bring in some money without sacrificing the stuff I do for my family by staying at home. No problem, right? It’s more of a tightrope walk than you think, since I’m currently the guy who does the dishes, laundry, cleaning, cooking, lawn work, homeschooling, and fighting like hell to make sure no one handling my son’s therapy is slacking off on their end of things. Throw even a part-time gig into the middle of that pond, and it’s going to make the kind of splash that washes me up on the shores of the living room sofa around bedtime. … Read more

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...And Little E Makes 3 Home Base

A written record of interactions with human beings

WTF?Two conversations I had with humans today, with some context.

In response to my mentioning, during a phone interview for a job at a business that has “Fayetteville” in its name but has relocated to Bentonville, that my previous job ended when I wouldn’t move to Rogers on my own dime: “Bentonville is pretty much the capitol of the state now. If you’re not willing to move or work up here, you might as well get in the soup line.” (My response was to politely suggest that we terminate the interview since there was an obvious misunderstanding about the location of the business; his response was to hang up on me. I’m going to assume that this will be another employer who won’t be gracing me with a letter or a phone call telling me I didn’t get the job.)

In response to me telling him we needed to go to the grocery store, and what we were going to get there, when I picked him up today: “HEY EVERYBODY! MY DADDY AND I HAVE TO GO TO THE STORE! WE ARE OUT OF APPLES AND GREEN BEANS! OH! MY! GOSH! WE HAVE TO GO!” (For a minute I thought he was going to raise a stampede of preschoolers to cram into my car to go Occupy The Grocery Store.)

These were my major interactions with humans today. I prefer the small ones to the big ones. If I interact with any more humans, I’ll let you know how it went, and how much ranch dressing they needed before they were palatable.… Read more

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Serious Stuff

Thank you for not sm… um… saying …much of anything

THANKSI finally got a response, after over a month of waiting, on a job I’d hoped to get at the only TV station that’s still maintaining any kind of credible presence south of the Bobby Hopper tunnel. And the answer was no. Ah well. To be honest, with the lengthy wait, I’d given up and started carpet-bombing the whole city with my resume and applications anyway.

But it was nice to hear a “no.” Which brings me to this thought.

Since when has it become the accepted behavior model for businesses who don’t hire you to simply never let you know one way or the other? KFSM sent me an e-mail (and a personalized one at that); AETN never failed to mail me a letter every time I’ve gone tilting at windmills in the direction of Conway.

I could count the number of instances of e-mails, phone calls or rejection letters from other local businesses on one hand.

I know that there are often single-person HR “departments” that don’t have the time for phone calls or the budget to send out letters. And I’m sure the current ratio of people-seeking-work to job openings is probably a staggering ratio. But it does make me think much more highly about the ones that do bother.

In vaguely related news, it appears that the station group that owns KFSM has reserved a new set of call letters for KPBI when the deal finally goes through for them to buy it: KXNW. They may not need me as a promo producer now… but sooner or later, they probably will. It’s a pity that the KPBI callsign will be disappearing though. A minor chunk of local history whose significance ceased at some point in the early 2000s. Not unlike myself.… Read more

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Funny Stuff Toiling In The Pixel Mines

LASTDAY

Logan's LastdayHoly crap. I want to work this morning and my palm crystal had turned red! LASTDAY! Time to report to carousel.

One of the last things I worked on was checking and prepping this morning’s Live With Regis & Kelly, the source of more than one closed captioning snafu. This one was funny: when you slow it down and pause it for whatever reason (getting up to answer the phone, answer a question, have a conversation with someone, save the universe, etc.), the captioning sticks on whatever characters last came through, and it repeats itself onscreen. It doesn’t do this on air, just on the edit station.

I just thought it was weirdly appropriate.

HEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE

It’s like the equipment knows, man.

Last day at the station was more or less quiet. I’m so happy that I don’t have to drive to Rogers every night and back from Rogers every day. There aren’t words to describe how much of a drag that was, and how tired I was as the end of either leg of the trip.

Best of luck to my former co-workers. Enjoy your nice new batcave.… Read more

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Serious Stuff

Dream Jobs

Anyone who knows me via Facebook or, well, just knows me, will probably not be even a little bit surprised to hear that the semi-frantic hunt is on for a new job. It’s been made official to those of us who pushed the buttons that run the ads (and make the money) at the Fort Smith teevee station have been given a firm drop-dead date after which our services will no longer be needed. That date is Friday, October 7th. … Read more